Why we moved into weight management

The thinking behind our Medicspot acquisition - and why it’s different.

Something unusual has happened in UK healthcare over the last three years. GLP-1 weight-loss treatment, barely used by consumers in 2022, is now one of the fastest-growing areas of private healthcare in the country. Around 3 million UK adults use these medications, the vast majority paying privately, since the NHS reaches only a narrow eligibility group (PwC, 2026). PwC expects that number to more than double as pill versions arrive.

You’ll recognise this pattern wherever you’re reading from. In Australia, more than 400,000 people already pay privately for these drugs (there’s still no PBS subsidy for the obesity indication), and Eucalyptus, the group behind Pilot and Juniper, just sold to Hims & Hers for US$1.15 billion, near 4.6 times revenue, with its UK business now bigger than its Australian one. The market has put a very large number on this category. That’s worth keeping in mind against what we paid.

The deal

In May we acquired Medicspot, a direct-to-consumer GLP-1 weight-loss service founded in 2016:

•       £850,000 in cash, paid on completion - no earn-out, no deferred consideration.

•       £5.3 million revenue in the twelve months to March 2026, broadly breakeven on EBITDA.

•       Roughly 0.16 times sales - a fraction of the ~4.6 times revenue Eucalyptus sold for.

•       Funded entirely from existing cash.

Medicspot and Eucalyptus aren’t directly comparable, but the gap illustrates the kind of asymmetry we look for: a validated, fast-growing category, bought before Medicspot has contributed a full year of revenue or any cross-sell benefit.

Medicspot is different by design

Many providers in this category sell the medication and stop. Medicspot built a full clinical pathway around it:

•       A dedicated, named health coach for every member, with weekly check-ins.

•       NHS Summary Care Record review before every prescription, via a GPhC- and CQC-regulated pharmacy partner.

•       12 months of structured aftercare, not a one-off sale.

•       A WhatsApp peer community and behaviour-change toolkit.

It works: members who engage with coaching lose 17% more weight in their first three months, and it addresses the biggest risk in this category. Published data shows most people regain two-thirds of lost weight within a year without proper aftercare (Wilding et al., 2022; Aronne et al., 2024).

It also means we didn’t buy a customer-acquisition problem: DCA already has 1.2 million patients and insurer & employer relationships that most standalone GLP-1 providers spend heavily to build.

What’s next

DCA already has the corporate and insurer relationships; Medicspot gives us a weight-management service they increasingly want, and we can take it straight to them. Whether you first followed this category through UK headlines or Eucalyptus’ numbers in Australia, it’s the same opportunity, built here on more disciplined terms, with a clinical model we think holds up better, through distribution we already own.

The market is still early. We intend to be one of the providers who does it right.

PwC (2026) Appetite for disruption: what GLP-1 means for consumer markets. Available at: https://www.pwc.co.uk/industries/retail-consumer/appetite-for-disruption-what-glp-1-means-for-consumer-markets.pdf.

weightloss.com.au (2026) Weight Loss Medication Statistics 2026: Data, Charts & Market Trends. Available at: https://www.weightloss.com.au/data/weightloss-medication-statistics/.

The Aussie Corporate (2026) Eucalyptus Doubles Revenue With UK Weight Drug Boom. Available at: https://theaussiecorporate.com/blogs/pickandscrollnews/eucalyptus-doubles-revenue-with-uk-weight-drug-boom.

Healthcare.digital (2026) Global Health Convergence: Analysis of the $1.15 Billion Acquisition of Eucalyptus by Hims & Hers Health. Available at: https://www.healthcare.digital/single-post/global-health-convergence-analysis-of-the-1-15-billion-acquisition-of-eucalyptus-by-hims-hers-he.

Wilding, J.P.H. et al. (2022) Weight regain and cardiometabolic effects after withdrawal of semaglutide: The STEP 1 trial extension. Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism, 24(8), pp.1553–1564. Available at: https://dom-pubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/dom.14725.

Aronne, L.J. et al. (2024) SURMOUNT-4: continued treatment with tirzepatide for maintenance of weight reduction.

NICE (2025) Overweight and obesity management: quality standard, published 5 August 2025. Available at: https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng246.